East Cape - The bite is back

We had been enjoying the best spring tuna fishing in recent history when all of a sudden conditions changed. It was 2 weeks ago when the water turned an ugly green and game fish evaporated. For several days it was hard to buy a bite. We tried inshore, offshore, to the south and also to the north. The result was the same each day. Three days ago the pendulum swung and now the bite is back. Bait is plentiful, the water has turned blue and tuna are dining on sardines and calamari we are offering. The sardines have been jumbo sized hook bait and the tuna are the best grade we have seen this year. The fish have been line shy but biting good on the light stuff. This has made for epic battles but the rewards have been worth it. We had a tuna bite a couple days ago that the fish went south. When I say south we never slowed it down with our 30# test gear and in seconds got completly zipped. In all my fishing years I've never seen so much line come off of a reel so fast. Most of the time even big fish will go herky jerky, maybe charge the boat and give us at least a moment to react. Not this bad boy, it was over in a flash. All I could do was smile and explain to our anglers that sometimes the fish win. Now conditions couldn't be better. The weather is gorgeous, fish are biting and traffic is still very light.

Jumbo sardine are abundant

Yellowfin on the bite

Beautiful weather, beautiful fish

Father son tag team

David "Accurate" Nilsen brought a group of 27 fathers and sons to Leonero. Everybody had a great time